Harden tonight

I love James Harden. By far one of my favorite players in the league. Its weird, I've never thought of the Rockets as one of my favorite teams but I feel like I have been *rooting* for them more than any team other than the Bulls.

And Harden had a great half, because he was knocking down 3s. Which is fine, some nights good players and good shooters have great games by knocking down jump shots. But...the only guy on OKC that can really check him is Seflosha, and time and time again he's had Fisher (who is beyond terrible), Ibaka, Jackson, or Martin isolated on him, and he just passes off or takes a step back. TAKE YOUR MAN TO THE RIM! THATS WHAT YOU ARE GREAT AT !

The fact OKC paid Ibaka and Perkins over him is mindboggling. I know he would have demanded more salary, but they wouldn't have been strapped by the luxury tax in that case.

Perkins should have been amnestied before this season. He is absolute trash. All the teams are going small, and when they do so, OKC doesn't have the Memphis style "We'll take advantage of their small ball with our bigs" because Perkins can't score or rebound on even guys 3-5 inches shorter than him.

Tonight Fisher has, by my account, bricked a 3, resurrected Aaron Brooks with his awful defense, turned it over a couple times and argued it when it was obvious he was guilty of messing up.

I can't think of a "contender" playing 2 worse players in there top 7-8 than these 2.

Yea I was actually happy the Knicks didn't sign him. I think he's just to weak to play against the top guards in the league they all just seem to bully him and force him into tos all the time. I don't really think he can be the starting pg of a deep playoff team also his defence is just soft to me

not sure how anyone can be proud of the Rockets as we all know this serious would have been over by now if Russell wasnt injured on that freak play. I'm really seeing now just how good Westbrook is. My god, this team is off and even the fans are out of it. The energy is completely gone and nobody on OKC is capable of stepping up.

Take westbrook off the thunder and they are barely a 500 team; take wade off the heat and I would still put the heat in the finals. What does that say about Durant?

I said after game 4 that Harden was settling for too many threes...I feel kinda stupid, but at the same time no one can shoot like he has tonight night in and night out. But wow he is lighting it UP tonight!

IDK about the thunder easily winning 50+ games with just Durant, this series alone without Westbrook has shown alot, I'm not saying they wouldn't but it's not as nearly as easy as your making it seem, I would have to see it to believe it, they're struggling with the Rockets.

Did we forget how EASILY the Thunder handled the Rockets during the regular season WITH Westbrook:

120-98

124-94

That's almost a 30 pt average lol the Rockets did manage to get a win tho:

122-119: With Durant playing bad.

Hell even the first playoff game was a blowout with Westbrook: 120-91

Westbrook is too valuable, and it would not be that easy for Durant to win 50+ games by himself, the Thunder were 4-1 on the year with Westbrook against the Rockets.

With Rose out of the blue getting injured and basically sucking all of their hopes of a championship away, they lost to the lowly 76ers in a best of 7.

This year? Without Rose, they were a 45 win team. And the difference is, Rose isn't even the number 2 guy, he's basically the only guy for the Bulls. With Durant alone, the THunder would win plenty of regular season games. They'd beat all the bad teams and still win some games against the good ones. Could still be a 6 seed in the West.

Yes, this is the ultra efficient Harden game. Also this is McHale riding his horses. Put the starters in and leave them in.

Brooks has serious problems as a coach which gets mitigated by having Durant and Westbrook (and Harden last year). It is questionable if Fisher and Perkins should be in the league and they certainly shouldn't be playing. Also every team should be able to abuse Chandler Parsons at the PF spot over the course of an entire game, and it is sad that OKC can't.

I'm not a huge Westbrook fan, but he was really good this year. Last year he got too much credit. I felt that Harden was just a better player and that OKC would be better served putting the ball in Harden's hands over Westbrook and also better with it in Durant's hands. But you can't go from Westbrook to Fisher. No team can survive that drop off in talent.